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04/17/2014

Due to slow news weeks and my crazy schedule, I opted to skip a few weeks in the interest of brevity. This post brings you: iTunes selling high res files, Warner Bros' discovery re: YouTube, David Byrne & Billy Bragg's thoughts on streaming, Wu Tang, and Billboard's use of Twitter for charts.

Two articles surfaced this week indicating that iTunes will begin selling high resolution audio files sooner than later as a response to dwindling music download sales (down 13.3% from this time last year). Whether you view this as a cynical marketing ploy or not, 24 bit is the future & the right direction.

When Warner Bros pulled all of their music from YouTube in a copyright dispute in '09, they actually saw sales of top charting albums increase by 10k units/week. The phrase "top charting" is important, as this is not necessarily reflective of non-charting, non-Warner artist's experiences:

The issues musicians face regarding music streaming is daunting and complex. We can already see how it's playing out with giants like iTunes (see above). Here's a long/smart post on on the subject from David Byrne. A lot of it is background/definitions that, if you already know, you can skip to the suggestions at the end:

Only Wu Tang... I know most of you have already seen this make the rounds but I think this is ridiculous AND brilliant, and underscores the importance of making your music "limited edition" and special in the age of intangible, unlimited copies:

Last but not least, 2 things I did not know: Billboard uses Youtube data to determine charts & music is the most-discussed topic on Twitter:

03/25/2014

Here are the sales #s for 2013 & while reflecting an overall decline thanks to streaming, there's an increase in local repertoire. "In France, for example, 17 of the top 20 selling albums of 2013 were local repertoire, up from 10 in 2011. In Germany, 7 of the top 10 selling albums in 2013 were local repertoire a trend reflected in 13 selected non-english language markets."

There were a couple of important rulings recently regarding the royalty rates paid by digital radio services such as Pandora to music publishers. This is a good cliffs notes version of the legal issues at stake:

Few of my posts last week illicited as much of a response as Dave Grohl's advice to aspiring musicians. What I came away with is: be great at what ever you wind up doing. No amount of strategizing will outsmart hard work. And sometimes the things we want aren't necessarily the things we're great at. Be open. And kick ass. Warning, it's full of expletivies but no less smart http://bit.ly/1nYcTJx

This one is a doozie and I'm not sure how many of you actually saw this: Don't like the woefully low royalties paid via streaming? A band called Vulfpeck outsmart Spotify with album "Sleepify": short clips of silence that they ask fans to repeatedly stream overnight. Crunching the numbers, if 100 fans do it, they could be making $588 a night:

Vinyl is the new cool thing to do, but it's not cheap and the market is getting crowded:

03/18/2014

Starting today, if you've subscribed via email to this blog, you will receive a weekly "greatest hits" recap of my music-related posts on social media. This will ensure you see everything I post without Facebook or Twitter determining the who, when & how. Of course, you're always free to unsubscribe and I'll never use your email for any reason other than these updates and Sound Bites Dog related news. Ok, let's do this:

From 03.11.14 - 03.18.14

Facebook Statuses: If you're a band/brand on FB, your statuses are probably only being seen by fewer than 10% of fans. Use a personal page or have your blog/website be the aggregator for all content (and yes, this is why I'm doing a weekly "greatest hits" now) http://read.bi/1dKYGo6

Streaming Royalty Rates: We need to overhaul streaming royalty rates right now or artists won't have 0.008 cents to rub together. It's in the best interests of everyone in our business (labels, publishers, artists AND tech) to actively pursue this for obvious reasons: our industry (like almost any industry you can think of) cannot be sustained by mere hobbyists in their bedrooms. We need fair and adequate compensation for market demand (music is used to sell everything and anything you can think of including nearly 40% of all youtube views & their associated advertising) http://bit.ly/1gKG9Kv

SXSW 2014 as summed up by Lady Gaga: "The best thing that happened last night was I came off the stage. I was covered in paint vomit — we did live art at the show — & the CEO of Frito-Lay came in w/ all her kids & was like, 'That was so brilliant,' & she was crying." http://lat.ms/1j20M7C

Neil Young's Pono: While I'm encouraged anyone cares at all about audio fidelity, I think a portable HD player seems antithetical to the reality of said device (IE listening on headphones at the gym). There also seems to be plenty of other HD, inexpensive alternatives to Pono. That being said, kudos to anybody doing anything outside the purview of Apple and advancing the cause of higher fidelity audio files: http://bit.ly/1i6ZWHr